


Pursuit Predator

by TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan



Series: Hybrids and Purebloods [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A little friends with benefits, Angry Lance (Voltron), BAMF Lance (Voltron), Balmeran Hunk (Voltron), Earth is Space Australia, Galra Keith (Voltron), Galra Shiro (Voltron), Gen, Human Lance (Voltron), Humans are badasses, If You Squint - Freeform, Implied Sexual Content, Kinda, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance and Hunk are best bros, Lance leaves voltron, Olkari Pidge | Katie Holt, Possibly Pre-Slash, Rebel Leader Lance, Resistance, Subtle Hance, that's a tag whooo, you know those tumblr posts about earth being a death planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 07:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17039519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan/pseuds/TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan
Summary: “Don’t worry, Shirogane, nobody has to break any bad news today,” he said, striding over to the table and slamming his helmet and bayard down on it so hard the visor cracked. “You don’t even have to say anything, I’ve got all the words you need: I’m done. You want me off the team, fine. I’m gone. But don’t expect me to stick around while you’re off playing Power Rangers.”- - - - - - - - - - > > - - - - - - - - - - < < - - - - - - - - - -Lance is sick and tired of being cast aside for the simple fact that he’s human. His entire team seems to be forgetting that they too were human not so long ago. When they try to force him off the team, he bites the bullet and sets off by himself.There’s a reason why humans are the apex species on earth.(In Which Earth Is Space Australia, Humans Are Badasses And Lance Becomes The Face Of The Resistance)Alternatively(In Which The Entire Team Overestimates Lance’s Anger Management)





	Pursuit Predator

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Only Human](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16949694) by [NomadicStardust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NomadicStardust/pseuds/NomadicStardust). 



> Hey guys, welcome back! I haven’t posted anything in a long while, but a few fics have inspired me recently: 
> 
> I’m sure a lot of you reading this will also have read ‘Only Human’ by NomadicStardust here on AO3. If you haven’t please do go check it out, it’s an amazing fic, one that definitely inspired me to create this one.
> 
> Also, obviously, ‘King and Reaper’ by PastelClark, which is an _iconic_ Klance fic and definitely gave me ideas on what to base my version of the Resistance off of.
> 
> Finally, ‘One Billion Stars in this Universe (And None are Mine)’ by Spiralled_Fury, which is one of my all-time favourite BAMF Lance fics out there at the moment. Who’s excited for the sequel on the 19th? I am.
> 
> So this fic takes place kinda during the whole clone Shiro debacle but before anyone knew he was a clone and also before Keith up and left? So in that kind of time frame. Honestly, it's so hard to write VLD fanfics these days. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fic, I definitely enjoyed writing it!

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Lance sighed to himself as he picked himself up off of the floor. This was the third time in as many weeks that he’d ended up in a healing pod and it was starting to affect his self-confidence. Not that he had much of that left after the events of the past four months.

He wondered how it had gone so wrong in such an insignificant amount of time, really.

After Keith had been identified as half-Galra, the princess and Coran had thought it prudent to run scans of the other paladins, just in case there were any latent genes or heritage that could be of assistance to the cause. That was when they discovered that during his time in captivity, Shiro, as one of their only human specimens, had undergone severe experimentation. Gene therapy and drugs had altered his DNA, turned him into a strange symbiote of Galra and human. Needless to say, he was not happy. In fact, a conflicted expression arose when Keith informed him quietly that the degenerative muscle condition he had suffered was also gone, and he had left pretty quickly after that.

But genetic changes were easy to understand. Hell, Lance had once wanted to become a genetic engineer so had cottoned on easily to Coran’s somewhat rambling explanation. (He had itched to correct the advisor on several terms, and spent a good three or four hours down in the castle archives that night, studying up on Altean biological and medical terms, so he wouldn’t be as lost as before).

What was less simple to grasp was the fact that Shiro began to change.

It was barely anything at first, hardly worth noticing, but Lance was observant for a reason. (If that reason was a heavy mix of paranoia and distrust, then who was to know? He had his secrets too). Things like slightly increased strength, but he trained all the time and had a mechanically engineered arm infused with Galran quintessence, so of course he was stronger. Shiro was a big boy, he was bound to have an above average grip strength. An elevated temperature was also somewhat explainable. Everyone except Shiro had gone through a bout of space sickness, caused by the artificial gravity on the ship that wasn’t quite calibrated for human comfort. (Not that Lance could really complain, since they hadn’t really considered human passengers ten thousand years ago, when humans weren’t even a species). Then his temper started to shorten, his sense of smell and hearing were enhanced, and his sclera turned slightly yellow, and that was when everyone realised that Shiro now wasn’t the same as Shiro then.

As though stimulated by Shiro’s changes, Keith came next. Allura theorized that it was, in fact, due to living in such close contact with another identifying Galra that Keith’s own genes had started to appear more physically.

It was like he was going through a second puberty. However, it appeared that his Galra parent was on the short side, because he didn’t grow much. Still, the increased muscle mass, sheer bulk, and impossible reflexes meant that he didn’t pout for too long about it. Alongside this, a curving, light purple mark appeared on his cheek, an obvious different texture to it from his normal skin. His hair took on a distinctive fur-like quality that continued down his spine and trailed off at his tail bone. Keith was always somewhat aggressive, but it became almost frightening as the days went by. His protectiveness over Shiro and Pidge became more and more oppressive until the two self-identifying Galra came very close to blows before Lance had arrived to snarl at them both in poorly disguised irritation and told them to ‘keep it down because _everyone_ else is trying to sleep in order to be ready for tomorrow’s mission, which, in case you had forgotten, is a rescue op for _Pidge’s family_ ’.

That had cleared that issue up no problem.  

Hunk had come as a complete surprise. He’d tested completely negative on the scan, as human as Lance. No, Hunk had _chosen_. Lance didn’t think he could forgive his friend for that. Of course, it had been a forced choice, but it was still a conscious decision.

They had been planetside, helping a rebel group fight against their officials. Lance, a sniper first-and-foremost, had the job of assassinating the leading representatives of their global government (and Lance was still marvelling at the fact that so far, earth was the only planet with numerous civilisations split into specific areas. There have been planets split between two different apex species, or immersed in a civil war, but none with different governments and- he was getting away from himself). Hunk however, was tasked with protecting innocent civilians from the gunfire and battle zones. Amassed among the rebelling forces was a Balmeran, a long way from home, with the convenient ability to manipulate biological quintessence - in layman’s terms, the life-force of a being.

The Balmeran had simply twisted Hunk’s quintessence a little, not to be unrecognisable, but enough to grant him an impenetrable skin, much like the Balmeran’s own, and super strength that exceeded even Shiro’s. The only physical change though, were the longer eyelashes and enormous feet that had somehow merged five toes into three. Lance didn’t even want to know. Honestly, he avoided Hunk as much as possible these days anyway, unsure if he would punch him if they crossed paths. And that was a bad idea because it would simply end up with him breaking his own hand.

Pidge had simply come out after that, and revealed herself to be a pure blood Olkari. A little known and little inherited gift of some Olkari was the ability to camouflage, much like the Alteans. They were unable to change physical aspects of their appearance, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, height, and so on, but they were able to change their species. Sam and Coleen Holt had once been Dysamn and Colaes before they had fled their planet in search of peace. Thanks to some sort of fate, they’d ended up on earth, hence why Pidge wasn’t so worried about contacting her mother. The likelihood was that Coleen already knew.

Naturally, along with her ability to camouflage, came an inherent talent with technology (not that she didn’t have one before). However, now free to roam in her Olkari body, she once again had the ability to interact with it mentally. Forget typing in code, she could lay back on her bed, close her eyes and pull it apart with her mind. Allura was a little peeved when the knowledge that Pidge too, could fly the castle, was shared, since she’d spent many a sleepless night navigating their way through the stars, lest they crash into an exploding asteroid, or god forbid, drift into the pull of a black hole.

So yeah. Turns out all his one hundred percent human friends were actually not one hundred percent human and also, had somehow managed to obtain the annoying opinion that since he was, in fact, one hundred percent human, he was also one hundred percent useless.

And that, beyond anything, was what made Lance mad.

 

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Backtrack to Lance on the medbay floor. That happened on a semi-regularly basis. His teammates seemed to forget that they were virtually indestructible and that he was still made of easily broken skin, damaged muscle and fragile bones. He was only human.

Pidge, the only other somewhat easily damaged person on the team, was usually paired with Hunk, who would just stand his massive frame behind her, eyes trained on the door, a massive bodyguard. Galra droids would shoot at him, but would have no effect, and Hunk would gun them down, him acting as a _human_ shield (Lance did enjoy a good pun) for his smaller, more delicate compatriot. Keith, Allura, and Shiro, on the other hand, were both too fast for the Galra to catch. They were good fighters before, they were formidable fighters now.

With these team Punk and team Galtean already on the sign-up sheet, Lance was left as the fifth wheel, no surprise there. He was generally tasked with finding some obscure object, or shooting the commander. What his teammates didn’t really understand was that both the obscure object and the commander were heavily guarded. Keith, Allura, and Shiro took the prisoners, Hunk and Pidge took the tech and Lance took the commander, and the commander’s elite squad and all the backup automated weapons designed to protect the commander. He’d try to raise this point during the discussions, but was always shut down.

Now, at the Garrison, no one would ever describe Lance McClain as bitter. He could be petty, sure, look at his attitude with Kogane at the Garrison if you want an example. He was definitely annoying, but the general go-to word to sum up McClain was ‘charming’. Lance was just a charming lad. He was usually found with a sunny smile on his face, a kind word for those who needed it, an encouraging pat or hug depending on level of acquaintance. (Some said he charmed his way into the Garrison, but he hadn’t. He’d tried, but Iverson was very difficult to charm).

If his classmates at GGA could see him now, they’d probably not recognise him. Gone was the smile, the kind words, the encouraging pats. Winks, exuberant hand movements, a sly little smirk that somehow got you to become a co-conspirator in whatever crazy scheme he’d come up with, all things of the past.

Lance supposed the term was bittersweet.

No, as he stood in the middle of the infirmary, he caught a glimpse of himself in the polished glass surface of one of the inactive healing pods. His face was narrow, cheekbones chiselled, high on his face, eyebrows drawn together and his jawline sharper than usual. It was strange, what the lack of a smile did to you. He had never really seen that before. Being happy seemed so easy before.

The scariest thing, however, as he stepped closer to the glass, were his eyes. They were still blue, still that same iridescent colour of the sea below his cliffside cottage back in Cuba, but they weren’t lively. They weren’t alive.

Maybe Lance wasn’t so human after all.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

He made his way slowly down the wide hallway, trailing a hand against the cold white wall of the ship. He didn’t have a destination in mind, had only shrugged on his brother’s old military jacket that had been hanging on the hook in the infirmary, (nobody ever mentioned that it was a semi-permanent home to it now), before meandering aimlessly from the room. The castle was perpetually cold, it seemed. Maybe Alteans had a lower core body temperature. Lance pondered on the topic momentarily before his thoughts moved elsewhere. Absently, he wondered where the rest of the team could be.

“Probably having a movie night,” he muttered to himself, if only to allow something to break the oppressive quiet. “Game night. ‘Let’s not invite Lance’ night. Or hell, they’re on a fucking mission, because why the fuck would they need the one person who always has an escape route. The one person who always bails them out of trouble.” His voice grew steadily more agitated as the combined irritation, anger and betrayal bubbled over finally inside him. “‘Fuck off, Lance, can’t you see the _big boys_ are training?’ ‘Piss off Lance, you’re too stupid to understand this.’ ‘Lance, maybe you should sit this mission out, it’s probably a bit too difficult for you to handle.’,” he ranted to himself, impressions uncannily familiar as his stroll merged to a stride with merged to a sprint as he tore down the hallway, trying to release all the pent up frustration of the past few days.

“ _FUCK!_ ” he roared as he reached the turning of the corridor, slamming his right hand as hard as possible into the wall. A crunching noise reached his ear, somewhat delayed, since he had already made contact with the wall. Interestingly, he couldn’t feel what he was sure was extreme pain shooting through his knuckles. He stared blankly at the dent in the wall, a few smudges of red blood breaking the uniform white colour. Lance glanced down at the split skin of his knuckles and kept his fist clench, watching the blood bead up and out of the cuts.

Shaking the incident from his mind, and hoping to god no one had heard him (he didn’t need to be babied any more than he already was), he continued on his way down the hall, this time heading for his room were he kept a first aid kit and some Altean bandages. (They were really more like a moldable putty that he used as a brace. When warmed with the hands, it could be shaped around the joint and held the bones in place while allowing flexibility and movement).

On the way, lo and behold, he happened to walk past the kitchen, where an undoubtedly important meeting was occurring.

Keith was so loud that even Lance’s unenhanced hearing could pick it up from the other end of the corridor.

“-he’s a liability on the field. I can’t keep on having to go back for him because he’s got himself stuck with one squad, Shiro.” Lance leaned against the wall outside the kitchen, careful not to trigger the automatic doors.

“He is constantly getting hurt,” Hunk added softly, guiltily, as though he were afraid Lance was listening in. Lance sighed through his nose, an aborted snort of mirth as he closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the wall.

“Is this the best course of action?” Shiro asked. “He is the red paladin, after all.”

“If the alternative is watching him die, then yes,” Pidge said determinedly. “Lance will get over it.”

“If we keep bringing him, he’s going to get himself killed,” Keith said bluntly. “The fight is more important than one person’s hurt feelings. We have to do what’s best for the team-”

“- _and_ for Lance,” Hunk said, and Lance could feel the glare he was shooting at Keith. Lance would be flattered if it weren’t said in defence of his imminent firing and demotion from paladin to what? Mascot? Moral support? Maid? “Shiro, I can’t see him get blown up again. I can’t. You have to do something, either consider enhancing him, or he needs to be protected.”

There was a silence. Lance supposed Shiro nodded because there was a sigh of relief and the sounds of creaking bones as supposedly all the paladins relaxed back in their chairs.

“You do realise that someone’s gonna have to tell him now, right?” Shiro pointed out tiredly. A tension filled the room and Lance fought the urge to laugh.

“I guess...I’ll try to break the idea to him. Make him think it’s his plan. He only wants what’s best for us, and what’s best for the universe,” Hunk said hesitantly. Lance could see where his friend (ex-friend? Acquaintance? Co-worker? They sure as hell weren’t friends anymore) was coming from, but did he honestly think he was stupid?

Lance shook his head against the wall, listening to the faint crunch of his hair as he squashed the strands against the metal.

“It’ll be nice to have the comms clear for once though,” Keith joked, clearly trying to ease the discomfort in the room. It worked, chuckles filling the air between them and Lance narrowed his eyes at the camaraderie at his expense.

Time to ruin it, he supposed.

Squaring his shoulders he strode right on into the room.

 

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“Afternoon, guys,” he said cheerfully, making eye contact with each and every one of the paladins sitting frozen around the table. “How’s it going? Heard you talking about the comms being clear for once, you finally get rid of that static, Pidge?”

Wide eyes stared back at him and he took a sadistic pleasure in their fearful faces. It was somewhat gratifying to have such strong people look at him in fear, made him understand why Zarkon was so maniacal.

“Pidge?” he prompted, eyeing them over the milkshake he’d just taken from the fridge.

“Uh, oh, yeah, the static,” Pidge blurted, scratching her ear nervously. “Nah, it was just a little programming error, you wouldn’t understand.”

“The frequencies merged and caused an overload in the transmitter, right?”

Another shocked silence.

“Yeah, how did you-”

“Introductory programming and computer engineering was a required first year course at the Garrison, Pidge, didn’t you know?”

Pidge gaped at him. Lance grinned at her, though he knew it didn’t reach his eyes.

“What about you guys, huh?” he said, turning his attention to Shiro and Keith. “You hit the training deck today? Because I gotta warn you, when I was in there yesterday, there was an issue with the battlebot, shot out a level fifteen at me when I’d asked for a twelve. Don’t worry, it wasn’t an issue, but I know you guys are on like, thirty, so you should probably be careful.” (Lance knew that the rest of the team were under the assumption that he was still stuck on level one. Actually, he was the standard of an average Altean eighteen-year-old, which was his age currently, so he was pretty chuffed).

“Level fiftee- Lance, you know you shouldn’t be training without supervision!” Shiro exclaimed, regaining some of his wits.

“You never told me that,” Lance said, acting confused. “Keith, Hunk and Pidge don’t need supervision, why do I?”

Shiro stammered slightly, wavering under Lance’s intense gaze that still somehow managed to come across as confused, even though there was something darker under the surface that was daring him to say anything about his humanity.

Lance turned away, turned his back on his teammates and towards the counter where he picked up a large knife and started chopping up a space carrot (it wasn’t the same shape as a carrot and it was a bizarre brown colour with teal flecks but it tasted like carrot so that’s what they called it).

“Hunk, you should know that I know you were mentioning chicken alfredo all through yesterday to get me to think that it’s my idea to have it for dinner tonight, but I’m not an idiot, you know. I see through you,” Lance said, choosing his words carefully, but letting them slip carelessly, teasingly as he shot Hunk a cheeky, knowing look, one that had Hunk’s dark complexion paling drastically.

“Listen, Lance,” Hunk began.

Lance interrupted him and cleared his throat, making a show of checking his phone.

“Wow, would you look at that? I’ve got an appointment scheduled, it’s called ‘get me the fuck away from here’ and unfortunately, it takes precedence over what you were going to say, Tsuyoshi.” The others gaped at him as his faux cheerful manner disintegrated entirely and was replaced by a harsh double. “Don’t worry, Shirogane, nobody has to break any bad news today,” he said, striding over to the table and slamming his helmet and bayard down on it so hard the visor cracked. “You don’t even have to say anything, I’ve got all the words you need: I’m done. You want me off the team, fine. I’m gone. But don’t expect me to stick around while you’re off playing Power Rangers.”

“Oh, and by the way, _Kogane_ ,” he hissed. “The only reason you have to keep coming back for me is because you keep forgetting to evade the fucking cameras, so every time you shoot past like Sonic the fucking hedgehog, more sentries pour out of their little hidey-holes and descend like a fucking force from the heavens on the person who is trying to mop up your mistakes. Maybe think on that the next time you’re leading a large group of prisoners through a heavily guarded ship, moron.”

He marched back to his milkshake and jammed a straw into the cup, taking an obnoxious slurp.

“Oh, and by the way, Pidge?”

She looked up at him, glasses hiding her expression from him, but her mouth tight and upset.

“If I told you that Matt was dead, would you _get over it?_ ”

There was a collective gasp and Pidge jerked her entire body away as though he’d electrocuted her, her jaw slackening in hurt.

“Lance!” Shiro said disapprovingly.

“Suck a dick, Shirogane,” Lance said, not even looking at him. He turned on his heel, stuck his middle finger up and strode out of the room. “Buh-bye.”

 

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When he finally reached his bedroom, he stood in the middle of the room for twenty whole minutes, a furrow in his forehead and eyes closed tight.

How could they do that? Did he really mean so little to them that they would cast him aside with no second thought? Lance knew he was strong, he knew he was a good fighter. Maybe he wasn’t as ferocious and fast as Keith or as precise and powerful as Shiro, but he could hold his own. Maybe he couldn’t withstand the full force of an ion cannon or disable all weapon systems in one second, but he wasn’t useless. The rest of the team were loud, noticeable, big. Lance was strong but thin and could squeeze into small spaces and stay silent for long amounts of time. He was their best spy, was invincible on stealth missions and was pretty handy with a gun. He wasn’t useless.

Still, if they couldn’t understand that, he couldn’t make them. And this toxic environment was more than just a few harsh words. Lance’s cousin, Enrique, had suffered from depression due to his self-confidence and self-esteem being torn to shreds by his girlfriend at the time. He knew that, with time, there was a chance that he too, might become depressed, and if there was any way to stop that, then he would.

“I gotta go,” he murmured to himself. “I have to leave.”

With his mind made up, he shook himself of the lingering memory of his teammates' words and surveyed his room critically. If he wanted to leave as quickly as possible without seeing his team, then there were certain things that would have to go. He knew that the others didn’t want him to leave the team, just wanted him out of his lion, in a twisted attempt to protect him from the war and also to make themselves ‘stronger’. They were a stubborn bunch, and would definitely try to persuade him to stay if given the chance.

Shiro was probably saying something along the lines of ‘give him time to calm down and then we’ll make him understand our position. He’s just upset for now, as soon as he cools off he’ll come around to our plan’. Lance snickered at the thought.

They were probably revelling in the idea of having a functioning Voltron. Allura in Blue, Keith taking Red back and Shiro back in Black permanently. Keith and Shiro had been sharing who piloted Black, neither caring so long as they could participate in the fight. When Keith was on a mission for the Blade, Shiro would pilot. When Shiro was suffering one of those all-encompassing headaches, Keith would pilot. It worked.

Apparently not.

He grabbed his spare clothes from the dresser, synthesized by a machine that Lance had had to practically dismantle in order to fix it again. Toothbrush, toothpaste and spares, soap and shampoo and a towel. He threw all his stuff into a duffle bag he’d found tucked away in a cupboard in his room.

He slapped the mold onto his hand, flexing his wrist and knuckles gently and smiling when the pain was dulled significantly. Shoving the rest of the first aid kit into his bag, he shouldered it and left his room, not bothering to look behind him.

Lance walked briskly down to the armoury, only slowing at junctions, when he peered around the corners carefully before carrying on. He grabbed a pair of handguns, some charging booths for them and a piece of equipment that looked like a bayard but only had a few set forms it could take. He strapped a sleek, beautiful looking sniper rifle over his unoccupied shoulder (Lance had been calling it Queenie in his head after the song Killer Queen) and grabbed a long kris dagger, its blade a translucent black colour.

Considering himself fully equipped, he continued on his path to the hangars. Not the lion’s hangars which were all housed in separate rooms, but the main hangar, used by the Altean military during the war. Lance had stumbled upon it quite by accident one night when he was unable to sleep. It was an enormous room, with ships lining the walls and floors, organised by model. Blue light emanated from the electromagnets holding the ships off the ground and wires dangled from the ceiling designed for climbing up to the ships held higher up the wall. They towered so high above him that he couldn’t make out the ones at the top.

Towards the end of the room, closest to the behemoth hangar doors were rows upon rows of sleek, sharp Altean fighter jets. They were fast, agile and completely fuel inefficient. Next in were four larger battle cruisers, requiring a crew of about ten to pilot. Camouflage ships, jamming ships, sonic ships, ion cannon ships. All of them in the same bright white and chrome and blue colour scheme. Lance finally turned his attention on the last class of ship.

Cargo. He snorted at the irony.

They were the same colour scheme that the Altean race seemed so fond of, so that had to go. He pried one of the loading doors open and dumped his bag by the entrance, looking around hands on hips at his new home for the next little while.

It was spacious, containing a large loading bay and storage room. In the middle of the ship were bunk cubbies, a total of six beds set into the wall. A narrow galley kitchen came next, fully equipped with a goo synthesiser, sink and also what looked suspiciously like a coffee machine. And finally, the kitchen led into the cockpit, fully decked out with controls that looked eerily familiar to Lance.

He let a sort of grin cross his face as he strode across to the controls and flicked the large power switch on. A smooth hum signalled the engine’s warm up and lights came on, illuminating the space further.

Heading back through the ship (and checking out the tiny bathroom with a toilet and shower that was about the floor size of one of the beds), Lance went back into the loading bay and noticed that it wasn’t actually empty. Repair tools and paint were piled neatly in one corner, stacked behind large white crates of...Lance cracked one open and his jaw dropped at the sight.

Food! Actual food instead of synthesised goo! He bit his lip in excitement, reaching out a hand to touch the packet of alien beef jerky. Closing the crate he moved on to the other side, which had different markings on the sides of the crates. The lid opened automatically when his hand hovered over the top, unlike the food crates. A hiss of escaped pressurised gas accompanied it, making Lance feel as though he were the protagonist of a sci fi movie. Inside were reels and reels of coloured fabric, their texture soft and smooth, almost like touching water. The next contained rows upon rows of metal ingots, each one a chrome platinum colour. Lance figured that the ships had been scheduled for a departure when the destruction of Altea had occurred.

Closing the lids and watching the pressure dial increase again, Lance turned back to the paint. Although he’d been learning Altean, the letters on the side meant nothing to him so he just opened them to see the colour. Choosing a matt brown colour, he attached the can of paint to what looked like a supersized airbrush tool and stepped outside. Aiming the wand at his ship, he squeezed the trigger and the area of the ship turned a deep orange-brown colour. It wasn’t the most attractive colour, but it would do. He painted the entire rear section of the ship brown and only the bottom two panels of the front. Then he attached a teal colour to his tool and sprayed some of the accents. Finally he took the matt black and using an Altean version of a brush, painted the word ‘Rosa’ in surprisingly even lettering. (His mama might not be with him in person but she was always there in spirit, Lance believed. Naming his new ship after her was the least he could do, since he planned for the ship to be as formidable as his mother was).

The rest of his work on the ship was pretty quick and easy. He fiddled around with the wiring on the identification system until it only recognised his signature as authorised access. Somehow, he managed to change all the system notifications to Spanish, which decreased his dyslexia as well.

Lance groaned as he climbed out from underneath the console and cracked his back. He was done. The ship was finished and there was only one thing left to do.

Wait.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

His opportunity came two mornings later. He’d heard the others calling his name as they moved about the castle, obviously not too worried since the castle notified Allura whenever something left.

They’d been getting annoyed actually, with his disappearance. Lance wondered if the castle could detect someone leaving the ship if done so using the magic that the Galran druids used. Maybe he should write a note for Coran.

Coran. Lance would miss the eccentric fellow who had become somewhat of a surrogate...guardian? For him in his time in space. They were both loud, exuberant, somewhat bizarre. They both were homesick, lonely, angry. Lance owed it to him at least, to keep himself safe. He grabbed the tablet he’d swiped from a slightly more advanced ship and pinged a message to Coran’s personal ID.

On the morning two days after his throwing down his sword, if you will, the alarms sounded. The Galra were attacking. Lance was torn, torn between the fire and purpose of Red’s call and his freedom. He sent an apology to the lion and told her that he could no longer pilot her. She protested and, with a heavy heart, he slammed down walls against her.

He would miss Red and Coran, he thought to himself.

The others were out fighting against the Galra squadron. If he was going to leave, he had to do it now.

He flipped the main power switch, minutely adjusting the pressure valves and oxygen concentration to optimise consumption. It wouldn’t do to suffocate out in space. He rested a hand over the small Balmeran crystal embedded in the console and pushed a small amount of energy into it, as he’d practiced yesterday.

A soft glow lit up beneath his fingers and the ship started to float away from its bay. Lance grabbed hold of the joysticks and marvelled at the response time, almost fifty times faster than the human ships he was used to. Obviously nothing on Red, since she was a sentient being, but pretty damn impressive.

He guided the ship over to the hangar doors and checked his airlocks one more time. Satisfied with the readings, he pressed the remote access button and entered the code that allowed him to leave the hangar. Bidding a mental goodbye to Coran and Red, he shot out into space, flying off in the opposite direction of the fighting which was concentrated near an asteroid field. Good thing too, Lance wasn’t nearly trained enough to be able to handle that sort of flying with a brand new ship.

As he flew further and further from the castle, he felt something inside him splinter, as though the distance was placing strain on it. Red was roaring inside his head, demanding him to come back but Lance couldn’t. He needed to do this.

The connection shattered, the faint residue still there, but ultimately gone. And Lance, for the first time throughout this entire ordeal, cried.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

Hunk didn’t know what he was expecting would happen. Honestly, he should’ve predicted this outcome. He knew Lance better than anyone, why didn’t he shoot down this stupid plan before it was even made?

He didn’t want Lance to leave Voltron and he didn’t want Lance to stop piloting Red. All he’d wanted was Lance safe. Safe and not being hurt every week. But with the benefit of hindsight...it was clear that they’d gone too far.

Their actions were almost racist. Shiro was being discriminatory against Lance because he was human. Keith didn’t want Lance in the same position as him because he was human. Of course, it was all with good intentions, but…

Well, you know what they say about those.

Hunk knew that Lance had dealt with racism before, he’d dealt with racism. Shiro had probably suffered racist abuse too. Kogane was a Japanese name, but Keith wasn’t actually from Asia, so probably hadn’t had the same experience. However Keith _was_ gay. Homophobic comments must have followed him around. They all had experience with discrimination but still had had the same views as their oppressors when it came to Lance.

Hunk felt guiltier than ever after that line of reasoning.

After Lance had left, escaping during the middle of a battle with Sendak and only discovered gone the following morning, Voltron had descended into shambles. Keith had stepped back into his shoes as the red paladin - they’d found the armour in his room, barely changed from before. He must not have taken anything with him.

He said that Red was as tenacious as ever but that there was something wrong. It was as though she were in mourning or something. Hunk had never seen Keith look so uncomfortable at the suggestion.

Coran too, seemed very distressed at Lance’s disappearance, often found clutching his personal tablet and staring at a short message on the screen. He tinkered with the systems more than before, muttering something about druids whenever questioned.

Hunk didn’t think that Shiro or Keith expected the entire team to unravel when Lance left.

Battles were difficult too. They weren’t a cohesive team; Keith, Allura and Pidge too aggressive and reactive to ever slow down and think things through. Shiro and Hunk would try to temper their aggressions but to little success - it was a rare day that something wasn’t blown up. Once again, Hunk marvelled at the difference in synchronicity of the team before and the team now.

He himself, could admit that he wasn’t handling Lance’s absence particularly well. After all, the other paladin was his best friend since they were seven. They had blood pacts and everything. Hunk traced his thumb over the little L that was scarred on his wrist. The idea that Lance had abandoned him plagued him for hours before he realised that no, Lance had not abandoned him. He had abandoned Lance long before Lance had even left the ship.

It was on a diplomatic mission to Del’Aire that they first caught wind of the Resistance.

The planet, functioning like a very creepy hive-mind, had informed them that a mysterious alien known as Lei had been fostering anti-empiric opinions all throughout the Kovian Sector. According to one of the Erai, this mysterious alien had been seen flying what looked like a renovated cargo ship, enormous laser cannons and munitions systems seemingly fixed to the outside of the original structure. Despite the bulky exterior, apparently it was quick and agile and also housed a small squadron of powerful fighter jets that were deadly and practically invisible they were so fast.

Hunk thought this was a blessing in disguise; it was a badly kept secret that Voltron was suffering in the absence of Lance, even though the general public weren’t aware that the original blue paladin turned red had thrown down his sword. Allura had been afraid that panic would ensue if the coalition discovered that yet another paladin had abandoned his cohorts. Hunk privately thought that Allura was full of it.

They were able to form Voltron but only in the heat of battle. It seemed that there was a disconnect between all the lions without Lance there to balance everything out. Hunk wasn’t sure why - it wasn’t as though they weren’t friends without Lance around, but Red was still acting oddly and temperamentally and even Blue would occasionally slide into weird funks.

Hunk sighed and slumped over his desk. It would be at this moment that Lance would slip into his lab, a bowl of some sort of marshmallow fluff that tasted of apple juice in his hands. He would smile at Hunk, force him away from his work and they’d sit on the floor, legs outstretched before them and the bowl of fluff between them. Lance would tell jokes and stories of earth and they’d laugh together. They’d design a robot together, Lance would come up with the ideas and Hunk would create blueprints.

Unbidden, a few tears welled up in his eyes.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

It all came to a head eventually. Somehow, the divided Galra forces had come to the conclusion that Voltron was behind all the coordinated attacks on several of their most important outposts and information hubs.

Shiro had sent Allura, Keith and Hunk to deal with the oncoming Galra fleet while Pidge and he infiltrated the main cruiser in order to free any potential prisoners and figure out how the hell they knew where they were.

Unfortunately, the plan didn’t quite go to, well, plan. Keith and Allura were so out of synch with each other that they kept cutting each other off, which led to a rather loud shouting match. Hunk had tried to mediate between the two while also holding off the majority of the fighter jets that were steadily gaining on the castle, still weakened after a similar skirmish not two days ago.

“Guys, please, not now!” Hunk pleaded, firing desperately at a squadron that had bypassed his covering fire. “The castle’s gonna get hit, and then we’re done for!”

“I would if Allura would stop getting in my fucking way!” Keith growled, swinging Red around in an uncontrolled spiral. Allura snarled in response and Hunk slapped a hand over his face.

“I am not in your way, Keith, you need to stick to your own targets!” she retorted. Before Keith could respond, a screech of static came from their comms link.

“-istance, hailing Voltron. Do you copy? I repeat, this is Fleet two-one point five-two-one-eight of the Resistance, hailing Voltron. Do you copy?”

Hunk stared, uncomprehendingly at his screen for a second before scrambling to reply.

“Yes, yes I copy! This is Hunk, yellow paladin, responding to the Resistance. We are in need of assistance. Over.”

“Yellow paladin, our ETA is four doboshes. Over.”

“Thank you, oh my gosh, thanks so much!” Hunk babbled. “Seriously, I can’t thank you enou-”

“Paladin, keeping our comms open leaves us susceptible to malware. I must close the connection now. Over.”

“Oh, of course, uh...over and out?”

“Over and out.”

Distracted as he was with the unexpected conversation, Hunk was almost too late to see the arrival of the Resistance and let out a rather high-pitched yelp as he threw Yellow into a barrel roll in order to avoid the beam of an ion cannon.

As though watching something out of a space drama, a large fleet of ships emerged from the blackness of space, engines leaving a trail of brightly coloured light behind them. Each one was slightly different in style and the bulky weapons systems on each one looked as though they had been welded on as an afterthought. Hunk wondered how they had managed to hook them up to the mainframe of the ships. Presumably they worked.

One, a particularly mean looking dark grey and brown one with a splatter of dark blood red on the nose, shot a powerful beam at the closest Galra cruiser. There was a pause and then the cruiser exploded, taking out a lot of the fighter jets close by as well.

Yep, they definitely worked. Hunk gulped and watched as the Resistance took out the rest of the Galra cruisers. It was only as they turned their attention on the largest that Hunk remembered Pidge and Shiro on board.

“Pidge, Shiro, you gotta get out of there now!” he yelled.

“What, why?”

“Because the Resistance is about to blow up that ship!”

“The Resistance?” Shiro repeated incredulously. “They’re here?”

“Yes and they’re aiming for the ship that you happen to be on, you gotta move _now_!”

Keith, face set in determination, was moving to intercept the beam about to be shot from the brown, white and teal coloured one that was at the forefront of the fleet.

“Keith, no!” Hunk shouted, watching in despair as half of his team was about to be wiped out. To his surprise, the ship paused and a link emerged on-screen.

“Yellow paladin…” a voice came from the speakers, not the same one as before. This one sounded metallic, as though the person was speaking through a machine. “Is your team clear of the ship? Over.”

“No, no they’re not!” Hunk cried. “Please wait!”

There was no reply but the ominous glow from the lead ship’s cannon died out and the confused noise from Keith’s end told him all he needed to know. A few seconds later, Green and Black emerged from the hangar entrance of the cruiser. Not a moment later, the main Resistance ship had blasted the Galra ship and all that was left was rubble.

“Paladins of Voltron, this is Fleet two-one point five-two-one-eight of the Resistance requesting permission to board. Over.” The original voice was back, sounding cool and professional and distinctly non-metallic. So it was a personal choice on the part of the other voice, or it was something to do with the species.

“Princess Allura of Altea speaking, you do not have permission to board the Castle ship, over.”

“Allura,” Shiro said. “I think we should talk with them. They clearly helped us, we should do the same.”  
“Princess Allura, the Resistance merely wishes to restock and repair damage done to one of the main thrusters of _Ariad_. We request permission to board and conduct diagnostics. Time required ranges from two to three vargas. Over.”

“I repeat, you do _not_ -”

“This is Shirogane Takashi, paladin of the black lion. We will allow you to board under one condition; we wish to speak to your leader and discuss future movements in the war. Over.”

There was a pregnant pause, filled only with the static from the comms and Hunk twiddled his thumbs anxiously.

“Paladin Shirogane, we accept your condition. Over.”

“Good. Follow us to the main hangar doors. Over and out.”

“Over and out.”

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

Lance swallowed as they entered the shadow of the castle ship. After months living out of a relatively much smaller ship, the sheer size of the castle took him by surprise. He and his fleet entered through the hangar doors and he hoped that the paladins and Allura and Coran wouldn’t notice the similarity of his ship with the rest of their Altean cargo ships under all the additions he’d made to the ship.

It was odd, but as time had gone by, he’d noticed the ship acting out of the ordinary. So much so that it appeared that it was making its own decisions. More than once he’d plotted a route, turned on autopilot and woken up a few hours later with the route changed, often to avoid an unplotted asteroid belt or strange collection of cosmic radiation that would otherwise affect the ship.

In the end, he’d become convinced that it had obtained a sort of sentience itself, and had come to the conclusion that it was to do with the miniaturised Balmeran crystal embedded in the control deck. He guessed that human energy was different from Altean energy and therefore his had had an effect on the ship, causing it to ‘wake up’, for want of a better phrase. Out loud and in his head, he called the ship ‘preciosa’ or ‘hermosa’, though her name was, in fact, Rosa. The paint had chipped off, but he knew and she knew and that was enough.

He touched down on the floor of the pristine, untouched hangar, his fleet following suit behind him. Their dirty, old and mismatched ships didn’t belong in the samey samey matchy matchy aesthetic of the castle and Lance couldn’t wait to be back out in space again.

Patting Rosa’s dashboard fondly, he slapped a hand on the button beside the airlock, pressurising the room before the gangway started descending slowly. For some reason he’d never been able to get it to go any faster (Lance privately thought that Rosa just believed that he needed a dramatic entrance every time he tried to disembark) so he usually just jumped down from when he could duck out of the doorway.

Once he’d landed on his feet on the floor he made his way over to where the rest of his men were gathered. His second in command, a wiry being named Xyrtax with red skin and luminous green eyes, clapped him on the shoulder as he arrived.

“Nice work out there, Lei,” he said cheerfully. “Poor _Ariad_ took some nasty damage to her left thruster and repulsor beam. Shouldn’t take too long to fix.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lance replied, speaking quietly just in case the paladins arrived. He’d put his mask in his pocket since his face was sweaty and he wanted to experience some fresh air for once.

A tall woman named Kira arrived next, her brown and grey dappled hide thick enough to withstand most projectile bullets and weak to medium strength lasers, accompanied by a short, stocky male, Jrew, who was about as strong as a baseline human but had an extremely enhanced sense of hearing. The leaders of the other ships, Pollux, who was about ten feet tall and as big as an ox, Kira’s brother, Hiro, Olia, who was immune to fire, and Jane, who was practically immortal, swiftly joined them, their crews already busying themselves with repairing the ships.

(As a bit of background, Jane didn’t actually have a name when she joined the Resistance. Lance, not wanting her to be nameless chose the name for her because it was the only Terran name that she could pronounce).

“Okay everybody,” Lance said, looking around at his team. “We did well out there, nice job everyone. Rendezvous in three varga for update on progress. Olia, watch your left cannon, I think it needs recalibrating. Pollux, your ship isn’t a battering ram, stop treating her like one. Apart from that, I think we’re all good. Xyrtax, you’re with me.”

“Lei, are you sure about this?” Kira asked, looking at him knowingly.

“We don’t have a choice. _Ariad’s_ fuel tank is shot and the engine’s dead. We’re miles into dead space at this point. We need _Ariad_ , she’s got our most powerful ion cannon and can hold the most amount of refugees. There’s no other option.”  
They already knew that, but repeating it to himself made him more sure of the fact.

“I’ll be fine,” he added as an afterthought. “Get to it, go on.”  
And without a word of opposition, they thumped their right fists against their left shoulders and turned quickly. Lance watched them go, wondering why such powerful creatures took orders from him, a lowly _human_.

The Resistance had started about a month and a half after he’d left Voltron. He’d been careening around the universe, occasionally stepping in and helping a planet rebuild after Voltron had driven off the occupying Galra, sometimes taking out a small outpost that nobody would really notice.

He was definitely helping, but it wasn’t game-changing.

No that started later, in a pub on the planet Elis. Well, planet is a very loose term. Elis was a floating satellite belonging to Xyrtax’s people. They drifted through space, a collection of bolted together buildings and walkways and machinery that created a city.

He’d been passing through and fancied a quick stop and a pint. It was at this pub that he’d met Xyrtax.

“So, friend, what brings you to Elis?” the alien sitting next to him had asked once Lance had let out a particularly drawn out sigh. He jumped slightly, his head jerking around to stare at the red-skinned alien.

“Nothin’ much,” he replied. “Just en route to Jukas, wanted a bit of a rest.”

“You got a ship then?”

Lance eyed the alien warily. He was used to people stealing his ships after all.

“Yeah, not that it’s anything to you.”

The alien looked at him curiously. They took a drink of what looked like ink, smacking their lips together in satisfaction afterward.

“Where are you from?” they asked.

“Terra.”

The alien promptly did a rather comical spit-take, glowing green eyes almost popping out of their head.

“Terra? A _death_ planet? You’re a _human_?” it wheezed, pointing a finger at him. Lance, slightly concerned for his new friend’s (?) health and also bewildered about what was happening, nodded weakly, hands fluttering between them awkwardly.

“We’ve heard horror stories about Terra,” they explained once they’d regained their breath. “Over seventy tectonic plates, mountains that spit lava, huge waves that destroy cities, winds reaching over four hundred kilometers an hour. It’s claimed that it’s inhabited by a species that has only just started space exploration.”

Lance was a little offended by that last statement.

“Hey, we’ve only been around for about a hundred thousand years.”

“You are _one hundred thousand_ years old?” it exclaimed.

“What- no! No, no, homo sapiens, that is, one of the classifications of my species, human, only evolved from a different animal, a hominid, one hundred thousand years ago. Our life expectancy is about eighty years old.”

The alien calmed down a bit and looked at Lance with a mixture of awe and fear.

“Is it true that you produce amylase in your saliva?” they whispered.

“Uh,” Lance responded, trying to think back to high-school biology lessons. “Yes, I believe so?”

The alien whimpered. “How do you not digest yourself?”

“Um, well, humans are mainly made of protein and I think amylase only digests carbohydrates so it’s not really a problem,” Lance said hesitantly.

Then began a long interrogation as to the biology of humans and their apparent deadliness to the majority of alien species around. When Lance introduced the fact that their ancestors used to be pursuit predators, the alien almost ran away in fear.

“No, hey, I’m not pursuing you anyway,” Lance had responded and without thought, both of them had shot flirty looks at the other before bursting into laughter. When the time came for Lance to leave, Xyrtax had joined him without a second thought. Over time they’d amassed quite a troupe, with about twenty different fleets scattered throughout the universe. Lance had wanted to give Xyrtax his own fleet to command but the alien had refused and said that his place was by Lance’s, or Lei’s, side.

“I’m only a human though,” Lance had said and Xyrtax had looked at him as though he were insane.

“If anything can destroy the empire,” he’d said seriously. “It’s a human. They are more fearsome and deadly than any Galra.”

Lance had smiled then and wrapped Xyrtax in a hug that had, frankly, terrified him, as had the wetness in his eyes. (“Are you leaking? Is that human blood? Oh god, someone call a medic, Lei’s dying, there’s something _leaking_ from his _eyes_ , HELP!”)

So as he watched his team turn away he knew that being a human was exactly why they followed him in the first place.

Xyrtax fell into step with him as he walked towards the main door leading to the corridor. Lance pulled the mask over his face and made sure the voice-jammer was turned on.

“Sergeant Toraz, we meet again,” he joked, turning to Xyrtax and striking a pose as though he were holding a large staff. Xyrtax snorted and swung a clenched fist around dramatically, mimicking swordplay.

“Druthe, I don’t believe you shall win this time! Feel the wrath of my sword! I shall save the Juvi from your wickedness!”

They both cackled. Toraz and the Plight of the Juvi was one of the worst films Lance had ever seen. They’d watched it one night after Lance had been drugged up in order to stop him from falling asleep after a nasty curse from a druid had threatened to kill him should he lose consciousness. Druthe, a discount Darth Vader, had the most fantastic metallic voice and young Sergeant Toraz was a pretentious bastard, but the film held a dear place in their hearts.

“Ah, we shouldn’t mock Druthe and Toraz,” Lance said. “After all, we’re basically doin’ the same thing.”

“I should think that we’re not quite as...showbiz, as Toraz,” Xyrtax protested. “But Zarkon is definitely a Druthe.”

Lance snorted at the thought of Zarkon in Druthe’s tacky bright green costume.

“I would pay good money to see that, my friend.”

Before they could continue their conversation, the door slid open and there, standing before him, was Voltron.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

Hunk didn’t know what to expect when they entered the hangar, but it wasn’t a tall, masked humanoid alien beside a red-skinned male having what looked like a pretend sword fight. They both turned to look at them, the mask having tinted grey glass over the eyes and the other alien with luminous bright green eyes.

“Paladins,” the masked alien greeted, voice the same metallic one as on the comms earlier. “My name is Lei. This is my second, Xyrtax. Would you like to meet some of the others, or would you prefer to talk now?”

Hunk glanced at Shiro who was staring at the masked alien with narrowed eyes.

“We wouldn’t mind meeting the others,” Hunk chimed in when it became obvious no one else was going to answer. The masked alien looked at him and nodded slowly, waving a hand for them to follow him. (If Hunk was thinking that maybe Lance had joined the Resistance and was on board right now, nobody had to know).

The Resistance’s ships were parked in a haphazard circle on the floor, a bustle of activity around them from the crew. Lei and Xyrtax led the way over to them, muttering to each other, sometimes letting out a snicker and elbowing each other in the side. Hunk felt a sharp pain in his chest and looked at the floor, missing Lance even more.

“This is Kira,” Lei said, gesturing to a tall brown and grey alien, hanging off of the side of one of the ships. “She captains _Jillian_ ,” he went on to say, not heeding the startled looks exchanged by the paladins at such an earthen name. “Pollux, who captains the _Odyssey_ , and Hiro, who is Kira’s brother and is in command of _Orih_ , his name backwards because he’s an arrogant little shi- shill.” Hunk narrowed his eyes at Lei, catching the slip up on the word shill, a well known Galra curse. The two aliens, one enormous and a mottled grey and green pattern, the other still tall but much leaner, with a similar hide to Kira, but a little darker, waved cheerfully at them.

“Olia,” Lei went on, pointing up at a petite alien standing atop her ship and shouting at a crew member. “Scary and shouty. She captains _Dr’olad_. Also scary and loud. Fix that please, Oli!” He got a hand gesture in reply, one that was apparently quite rude. Lei laughed at that and Hunk startled because the voice-modulator didn’t seem to work as well on laughs and for a second he could’ve sworn it was-

“This is Jrew,” their guide said, waving at a short, thickset alien with enormous ears. He nodded in reply. “Captains _Avery_ . And finally Jane, who commands the _Celos_.”

Xyrtax coughs pointedly.

“Fine, fine,” Lei sighed. “Xyrtax here pilots the _Ariad_ , and I captain the _Rosa_. And the entire fleet too.”

“Shut up,” Xyrtax muttered.

“I’m sure you’ll get to know everyone a little better, plus everyone has crew too who you’ll see around, but we’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

“Yes, well, nice to meet all of you,” Shiro said, though he hadn’t taken his eyes off of Lei once. Hunk wondered if Shiro too had felt a little odd about Lei’s mannerisms. They seemed very human for someone who was presumably an alien.

“Would you like to discuss the empire now, then?” Lei prompted and Allura stepped forward.

“Yes,” she said simply. “We would like to know your strategies for combating the Galra. I confess we have been...struggling, lately.”

Lei inclined his head and glanced around the room quickly.

“Kira, you’re in charge, got it?”

“Affirmative, sir!”

“Xyrtax, with me. I presume you have somewhere in mind to talk?”

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

The group sat in the dining hall, Lei and Xyrtax on one side, the paladins lined along the other.

“Where would you like to begin?” Lei asked once everyone was settled. Hunk had noticed that he didn’t seem particularly in awe of the castle, unlike his friend Xyrtax who hadn’t managed to close his mouth during the entire trip to the dining hall.

“Firstly, we should introduce ourselves,” Shiro said. “My name is Shiro, I’m the black paladin. This is Pidge, Hunk, Keith, and Allura, who pilot Green, Yellow, Red and Blue respectively. Coran is also on board, though I think he’s actually trying to upgrade our alert protocol for druid presence and use of magic on board.

Lei jerked a little before relaxing again.

“Lei? You alright?” Xyrtax muttered. Lei nodded quickly, still looking straight forward (or so Hunk assumed, he was still wearing the mask).  
“What species are you?” he blurted. “Oh god, I’m sorry, that was so insensitive. It’s just, you haven’t taken your mask off, is there a reason?”

Lei had turned to look at him, face, or mask, unreadable. (Well, as if that weren’t completely fuckin’ obvious).

“It’s no problem,” Lei said, sounding somewhat amused. “I’m Galra. Well, half, as you can tell from the height.”

He pulled a tab at his wrist and peeled the sleeve down to reveal a patch of purple skin, the fine hairs a dark purple too. Aside from colour, the flesh looked distinctly human and Hunk wondered what his other parent’s species was. Nonetheless, he couldn’t squash the disappointment - however unlikely, he’d still hoped for a second that Lei was Lance.

“I see. Why do you not remove your mask then?” Allura asked.

“It is more a personal preference,” Lei said, uncomfortably. “You see, I have a slight disfigurement that isn’t particularly attractive. Also, the planets I help to save are usually quite anti-Galra in sentiment. I prefer to keep the information to myself and a few trusted people.

“Why tell us then?”

“Voltron is free of spies. I have a reliable source who can tell me that.”

“Lance.” Pidge had spoken and Lei’s head shot around in response. Hunk would guess that his eyes had widened.

“What?”

“Your source. It’s Lance, isn’t it.”  
Lei relaxed quickly, Xyrtax’s hand on his shoulder clearly grounding him somewhat. Shiro was still looking suspicious.

“Oh. Yes, that is the name he goes by.”

Hunk’s pulse skyrocketed and he heard the scraping of chairs as, apparently, the entire team stood.

“Take us to him,” Allura demanded. Lei stood too, slowly and languidly.

“No. He doesn’t want to see you.”

Hunk flinched. Snippets of the last time they’d seen Lance flashed through his mind.

_Get me the fuck away from here...Tsuyoshi...nobody has to break any bad news today...I’ve got all the words you need...don’t expect me to stick around while you’re off playing Power Rangers...get over it...get over it...get over it..._

Lance’s bitter expression was seared into his memory, his sneer etched onto his face as he tore into the team who had thought him too weak for them, too weak for the blue lion even though she chose him, too weak for this war.

The rest of the team had similar expressions on their faces.

“Please,” Hunk croaked. “Please.”

Lei was tense and clearly angry.

“How many times do I have to say that he _doesn’t want to see you_ ! I know what you did to him, what you were planning to do. He has moved on, he is happy where he is. Leave him alone.”

“He’s my best friend,” Hunk whispered, staring at Lei with pleading eyes. “At least give him a message?”

Xyrtax was standing slightly beside Lei, his shoulder positioned slightly in front of his leader’s and a nasty snarl on his face as though willing to face off against any of them for Lei. Hunk wondered if Lance would have done the same for him.

“What is the message.”

“Tell him…” Hunk thought quickly. “Tell him that I miss him. Tell him that I love him and I wish he hadn’t left but that I understand why he did. I’m proud of him. I’m sorry for what I said and what I...what I did. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. I had a choice and I picked the one that pushed him away and blinded me. I’m sorry.”

Lei’s head was tilted to the side and Xyrtax was still at his side like a loyal guard dog, but he was no longer snarling at the paladins, simply standing, relaxed, but also coiled tight like a spring.

“I...will pass on your message to Lance,” Lei said. “I do not know how he will react. If I were him though...I would say that I miss you too.” Hunk blinked in surprise, successfully clearing his eyes of the ensuing tears.

“If we could get back to the subject at hand,” he continued, clapping his gloved hands together. “I have schematics and battle plans that I would be willing to share with you should you want them. I would imagine that the repairs are almost complete; our crews are very efficient.” He dug into a pocket of his olive green leather jacket and pulled out a stick compatible with Altean technology. Pidge and Hunk narrowed their eyes at it. Lance must have given it to Lei at one point. Hunk wondered how close they were.

Allura practically snatched it from him and plugged it into the console underneath the dinner table. Xyrtax jumped when the holographic screen emerged but Lei didn’t even flinch.

“I shall also leave this communicator,” he said. “If you press the purple button it will contact the nearest Resistance fleet to your location. The green button will directly contact the _Rosa_. It is only to be used in extreme emergencies.” He placed the device on the table. “I ask that you don’t call upon us too often. We have a delicate plan in motion involving all the fleets in place, one that is about to take effect within the next movement. It would be...irritating if they weren’t all on schedule.”  
Allura nodded, though she narrowed her eyes at Lei. Doubtless she wanted to know about this plan. Presumably it was something big.

“Of course,” she said graciously. “I will be considerate of the Resistance’s plans.”

Lei stiffened somewhat before turning to Xyrtax who nodded.

“Good. Then we shall be leaving soon. Estimates say that the  _Ariad_ will be ready for space travel in about thirty doboshes.”

Even though Hunk wasn’t sure what to make of the half-Galra rebel leader, he was a little bummed about him leaving.

“You’re half-Galra?” Keith piped up. Hunk jumped; honestly, he’d almost forgotten Keith was even with them.

“What?”

“You’re half. Half-Galra,” he repeated himself. “That’s what you said, right?” he continued, more unsurely.

“Yes, I did,” Lei said.

“Me too,” Keith replied, looking down at the table in shame. Lei was looking at him carefully, Hunk thought.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Lei told him. “It’s just genes.”  
Keith looked up at him as though he’d revealed the secret to eternal life.

“Really?”

“Course,” Lei said. “In my case, genes meant that my head is the shape of a pomo fruit, but there’s nothing wrong with me. I can think just as well as any other species, fight just as well, talk just as well. Aside from my physical appearance, I’m a perfectly normal half-Galra. And you clearly don’t have the same issue.”

Keith stared at him.

“Keith, was it?”

He nodded.

“Listen, Keith, there is nothing wrong with being Galra, half-Galra, marrying a Galra, adopting a Galran kid. What makes up your DNA doesn’t define you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Keith replied quietly, still staring at Lei in wonder. Hunk didn’t know how long Keith had been struggling with the revelation of his Galra heritage but he could guess it was a lot harder to come to terms with than his own altered quintessence. Probably because Hunk had had a choice and Keith had not. (Allura’s initial reaction hadn’t helped much either).

Without another pause, Lei raised a hand in farewell and swiftly left the room, Xyrtax in tow behind him.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

It was only about an hour after Lei and the Resistance had departed that Pidge skidded into the kitchen where Hunk was attempting to create flan.

He almost had it as well. The pastry was a little powdery and not quite the right flavour but the filling was tasty and the ice cream he’d made to go alongside was actually edible, unlike the first batch.

“Hunk!” Pidge shouted, causing him to spill entirely too much milk into the pan. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he put the jug down with a sigh.

“Yes, Pidge?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said indifferently, before grabbing his wrist and yanking him into the corridor. “It’s just, on that drive that Lei gave us, I found something! Something about _Lance_ ! You need to see this, come _on_!” She was attempting the ineffectual task of trying to drag him down the hallway. Hunk took pity on her and began walking of his own volition into her lab.

On the large computer screen taking up almost three desks, was an open folder with several video logs.

Without pause, Pidge hit the play button on the first one. The image showed a black screen, as though the lens was face down on the ground.

 _[What the-]_ Hunk’s jaw dropped at the sound of Lance’s voice coming through the speakers. _[What is this?]_

The image blurred as the device was picked up and turned around.

Lance’s face came into view, frowning at the lens before his eyes widened in realisation.

_[Oh, it’s a camera or something…must have knocked it over at some point…]_

The screen went dark again, the final image being of Lance’s face screwed up in concentration, tongue sticking out between his teeth. A message flashed up soon after reading ‘log end’.

Pidge hit the next one without needing prompting from Hunk, who had sunk into the spare chair in a state of shock.

 _[Good morning!]_ Lance greeted them cheerfully from where he was sitting in his ship. _[If you’re seeing this, it is seven o’clock on my ship at the moment. I am planning on giving these to my family when I get back home so that they can see what I’ve been getting up to out here in space! Hey mamá, papá, Marco, Veronica, Luis, Rachel, Lisa, Sylvio, and Nadia, I hope you’re all doing great!]_

 _[I’ll also admit that I might be going a little stir crazy cooped up like this, so I figured that filming myself would at least give me something to do,]_ Lance continued sheepishly. _[But there are definitely worse things I could be doing. Namely, kicking a teammate off of the team purely because he’s human.]_ Hunk flinched at the change in tone, sensing a similar reaction from Pidge.

The rest of the videos were much the same vein. Hunk didn’t miss that Lance didn’t mention any of them by name in his logs, nor did he really speak much about Voltron in general. He’d explained, at the very beginning of his third video, how he’d got into space and the piloting a giant lion thing, but aside from that hadn’t touched on the subject.

It was only until the ninth log that Hunk and Pidge made a discovery.

 _[I just realised that I haven’t given you a tour!]_ Lance was saying. _[Don’t all YouTubers do this? Anyway, welcome on board the_ Rosa _! Yeah, I named her after you, mamá.]_

Hunk and Pidge were no longer listening, staring gob-smacked at the screen.

“The...the _Rosa_?” Hunk stuttered, blinking rapidly. Pidge nodded slowly. “Is that...wasn’t that the name of Lei’s ship?”

“Yep.”

“Lei, the Resistance leader.”

“Yep.”

“Lance’s ship?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my god.”

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

They had gathered everyone as soon as they found out the news.

“So...Lance’s ship is Lei’s ship?” Keith tried to clarify. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Well, it could mean that Lance was aboard the _Rosa_ while it was aboard the castle,” Pidge said, to various annoyed reactions. “Exactly. Lance could have given the ship to Lei as a gift or some other event. A bet maybe. Lei could have stolen the ship from Lance, but I don’t think so, since they seem to be allies. Or...and I don’t know how feasible this is, but Lei could be Lance.”

Everyone blinked at her, except Shiro who was nodding along.

“What?” Keith said. “But Lei is half-Galra! He showed us his arm!”

“There is disguising technology that can alter skin colour and texture,” Allura supplied. “And any numerous ways of changing the colour of skin. We only saw a small portion of his skin.”

“C’mon, Keith, you must have noticed him acting strangely,” Pidge wheedled.

“Yeah, the reaction with Hunk’s message and us asking to see Lance? The human names - Jane and Odyssey and Jillian? The ‘we’ll be out of your hair’ comment?” Shiro said. “I thought something was up with him.”

“I suppose there is only one way to deal with this,” Allura said, pulling out the communicator from her pocket.

“Wait!” Hunk cried, hands tugging anxiously at his pants. “Lei said not to call because of that plan he has! Wh-what if we mess it up and Lance gets hurt because of it? We don’t know what he’s got going on. We need to think about this before we rush into anything.”

If Hunk was being honest, he missed the dexterity of his five toes. His feet, more like hooves now, were bulky and hard to fit into his shoes and also ruined his ability to fidget without causing damage to his hands. Hunk had once yanked at his finger so hard it had dislocated, and Lance had had to pop it back into place before taking a teary-eyed Hunk to the infirmary back in the Garrison. (Hunk didn’t have a particularly high pain-threshold, sue him). The inability to wriggle his toes wasn’t something he’d really considered when he’d accepted the Balmeran’s offer all those months ago.

Allura bit her lip and stared down at the communicator.

“We wait a movement and three quintants. Then we call him and demand answers.”

“Yeah, ‘cause demanding answers worked so well last time,” Pidge muttered, snatching up her things and leaving the room.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

Lance sighed and wiped his face with a towel. The mission had been successful and they had wiped out a large chunk of the Zarkon-loyalists still around. Their information had been accurate; an old Galran commander and ex-royalty, related to the old King Zarkon of Daibazaal, back when it was still around, had tried to start a violent revolution against the New Galra, who were starting to fight back against the empire.

Their main headquarters was a heavily guarded base situated in the middle of an asteroid field composed mainly of unstable nitro compounds which are very sensitive to friction and explode if nudged even a millimetre. It was also located within an enormous nebula containing highly radioactive elements such as plutonium and thorium. Lance and Xyrtax had spent hours poring over maps and schematics, trying to find a way through this literal minefield, considering none of their ships were impervious to the radiation emitted from the nebula.

Even more annoyingly, there was some sort of jamming signal surrounding the base, meaning that even sonar couldn’t get a clear read of the exact whereabouts of the base. And it was invisible too, which made things so much more difficult.

So Lance had been pretty busy, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t surprised that Voltron hadn’t called. After all, he’d heard they’d been suffering pretty badly in recent battles against a faction of Haggar’s old druid buddies who had teamed up with a nasty species called the Zythorlians who were space colonists and slavers, hired by the Galra to get rid of certain people.

Lance had been distracted for a while after their meeting. Hunk’s message had left him raw and vulnerable, unable to concentrate. He knew that Xyrtax was worried about him, trying to distract him by regaling him with tales from the alien’s youth, but Lance seemed distant and unreachable.

Eventually he had snapped out of it but not after a great deal of introspection.

Was he overreacting? Had Hunk really betrayed him to the extent that Lance was making it out to be? Lance and Hunk had been open with each other, baring their insecurities about their much stronger and more powerful teammates. Lance in particular had spoken about his fear of being seen as weak and incapable compared to Keith’s skill and Shiro’s power. Both of them had been slightly suspicious of Pidge, who had a weird knack of dozing off in front of her computer and yet somehow arrive to breakfast the next morning with a fulling completed tracking code or programme for the training bots.

He sighed and slung the towel around his neck, pulling on his tight base layer shirt, tracing one hand down the thin but deep wound on his shoulder. One of the commander’s guards had slid a paper thin sword through the minute gap between his shoulder pad and his chest plate, stabbing it right into the sensitive muscle there. Lance had shot him in the head for his efforts, but it had still hurt like a bitch and he’d had to keep it in his shoulder for the rest of the mission since he was afraid it had hit an artery. The last thing he wanted was to bleed out on an abandoned Galra base.

“Lei, you decent?” Xyrtax called from outside. Lance grunted in response, heading towards the exit. The ramp lowered and this time Lance waited for it to touch the ground before stepping off, not wanting to jolt his shoulder and tear his stitches.

They were camping out on a small, dusty moon with an oxygen-rich atmosphere, so helmets were unnecessary. The full force of the Resistance had gathered for this mission, since it was a very delicate operation and required basically everyone on call.

A grand total of over one hundred and twenty ships were parked across the small plain they’d chosen as their temporary base camp. The Resistance was made up of sixteen fleets so far, of eight ships each. Each ship had a crew of about ten people, making for over a thousand people, all following him.

When he’d originally set up the Resistance he hadn’t expected it to grow so exponentially. People were willing and desperate to fight against the Galra, and the Resistance gave them a chance that neither Voltron nor the Blade of Marmora would give them. Voltron was a small, specialised team that was already full. The Blade, as formidable as they were, only accepted Galra or half-Galra. The Resistance was a place for anyone to fight back, no matter who you were or where you came from.

Lance had discovered quickly that he needed a screening process and a way to keep track of all the members joining. He’d come up with a basic programme that allowed him to access identification of all the aliens wanting to join and cross-referenced the information with anything available on the intergalactic database. (Yes, Lance had freaked out when he discovered space google).

This meant he could vet anyone who tried to join, especially after the disaster that was Operation Nexus, when a traitor had caused the deaths of twenty-one rebels. Lance had almost shot him but refrained; he was not Zarkon. Instead, they had sent the traitor to an abandoned satellite orbiting a dead planet and left him there with enough food to last three phoebs. Lance didn’t know what had happened to him.

Anyway, the point was that the Resistance was big. It was enormous and they all looked to him to lead.

Lance stepped up onto a slightly raised platform in the centre of their impromptu camp. As though awaiting this motion, the entirety of the Resistance started to make their way over to him.

“Alright then,” Lance began, feeling his hands twitch a bit with nerves. “Congratulations everyone, on a mission well successful!”

Cheers punctuated his shout, and Lance felt a grin creep across his face from the applause. He bowed teasingly and raised a hand for silence.

“I am not one for long speeches,” he said, voice carrying across the reverent silence. “I find them unnecessary and boring to listen to.” Jeers and laughter. “Nevertheless, I want to extend my utmost thanks to you all.”

“Without you, we wouldn’t be here today! Without you, I would not be standing here, in front of you all, celebrating the downfall of the empire that has crushed us mercilessly! Without you, the mission we have accomplished today would have been left untouched! Millions of beings would have died. We are all heroes.”

Stamping feet and hoots filled the air. Lance felt adrenaline hammering through his body.

“So tonight, we celebrate! We dance and we make merry. We laugh and drink and...well,” he smirked at the audience who jeered back at him. “Tomorrow is a new day, one for change and progress, but for tonight? Let us revel in the defeat of our enemies and our victory!”

He raised his blaster at the sky and let off a shot. The Resistance surged upwards, each member raising their own gun to the sky and firing. A cacophony of blasts filled the air and there were cheers and laughter and Lance couldn’t stop smiling. Tonight, at least, tonight would be good. He would worry about Voltron in the morning.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

Perhaps Lance had spoken too soon. He woke up the following morning to a sharp beeping, a throbbing headache and a naked body in his bed.

“Ah, shit,” he mumbled, rolling out of bed and picking up the source of the beeping that was making his ears ring. As his hand closed around the smooth metallic object, his heart sank.

Sitting up in bed, he glanced to his left and saw a pretty alien girl with soft golden ears and skin looking back at him.

“Marvia,” he greeted softly, not wanting to hurt her sensitive ears any more than usual. “Sorry for waking you. I’ll take this outside.”

She smiled at him and pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder as he tugged his pants on.

Lance and Marvia had met not long after he’d left Voltron. They weren’t dating but they were pretty close and did enjoy each other’s bodies when they were together. She was the leader of another fleet so they didn’t meet up that often, but when they did...Lance allowed himself a little satisfied smirk as he pressed his lips to her forehead before leaving the room.

He headed into the cockpit, closing the door softly behind him before pressing the ‘accept link’ option flashing at him onscreen.

Almost too late, he slapped the mask on just as the link connected, yanking his hood up to hide his ears and hair and making sure the rest of his skin was covered.

“Lei,” greeted Allura, and how odd it was for her to call him using his fake name. “We would like to meet with you as soon as possible.”  
“Princess Allura,” Lance said cautiously. “Would you mind giving me some more information?”

“We have come across evidence that your ship, the _Rosa_ , originally belonged to Lance and we have some hypotheses we’d like to test out.” Behind his mask, Lance paled. How had they found out about the name of his ship? “-at the earliest convenience.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Lance said, still panicking slightly. “I’ll send you my coordinates.”

“Excellent,” Allura said, sounding pleased. “We’ll be arriving presently.”

The connection cut off abruptly.

“I look forward to it,” Lance muttered, running a tired hand down his face.

“Lei?” Marvia called softly. “Come back to bed. There are vargas before you have to be up.” Lance smiled to himself at how different Marvia was in front of him alone to her in front of a crowd.

“Coming,” he said, setting an alarm to wake him up in six vargas time.

He slipped back into bed, enjoying Marvia’s pleased hum as he pulled her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her waist. Tucking his face into the nape of her neck, he breathed in her scent and wondered how he got so lucky.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

“A moon? Why are they on a moon?” Hunk asked, bewildered.

“I believe it is temporary,” Allura explained. “From my research, the Resistance does most of its work while motive. It is split into fleets made up of eight ships each. Recently, an old Galra base, heavily protected by both its environment and its defences has been destroyed, not too far from the Resistance’s camp. Common thought is that they are the cause.”

A few satellite pictures showed up on screen, a large area lit up in the centre, with ships spiralling out in all directions. Presumably a party.

“Looks like fun,” Pidge said enviously. “Why don’t we have parties like that instead of these stuffy diplomatic dinners?”

“That was a crass celebration of a job well done, we need to form alliances in order to keep the Galactic Coalition growing,” Allura said, rather snobbily in Hunk’s opinion. Lance used to drag him and Pidge to lots of parties in the small town near the Garrison where all the students used to try to sneak off to. Hunk had never admitted it, but they were pretty fun, especially the dancing and the music.

“Still,” Pidge muttered.

“We shall be landing on Sephyr in about ten doboshes, everybody,” Coran announced cheerfully. “There shall be sun and heat today, so be sure to bring sunscreen! Also, the bugs on this moon are vicious. I remember, once-”

“Coran,” Allura interrupted, an exasperated smile on her face. “Perhaps another time?”

“Ah! Certainly, princess.”

There was a familiar rumble as the castle descended through the atmosphere on the moon and landed towards the edge of the encampment. There were a lot less ships and tents around than in the pictures from last night. Hunk guessed that several fleets had already packed up and left on other missions.

Hunk only hoped that Lance hadn’t.

They disembarked the castle to find Lei, Xyrtax and a golden-skinned alien awaiting them. The golden alien was holding Lei’s hand, her long, soft ears laid back against her head. She wore a pair of loose black harem pants and a white bandeau top. A cropped brown leather jacket was paired over the top and she would’ve looked like a stereotypical bad boy’s good girlfriend had it not been for the dual pistols strapped to her hips, the dagger on her ankle and the sword on her back.

“Welcome to Sephyr,” Lei said, stepping forward without letting go of the gold alien. “This is Marvia, my...a good friend,” he said, smiling down at her. She dipped her head in acknowledgment.

“It is good to meet you all,” she said demurely, her accent soft and strangely elusive.

“You said you had something to discuss with me?”

“Yes,” Pidge said, stepping forward. Her face was already glistening with sweat, and even though she didn’t have hair as such anymore, the Olkari were used to cool deciduous forests not the dry heat of the desert.

“Come inside,” Lei said, heading towards a large marquee looking tent in the centre of the camp. Inside was an enormous holographic table with flip boards lining the walls, one with a half rubbed out diagram of what looked like a Galra base on it. It was a bit cluttered, with bits of scribbled paper decorating the table and an animated film of an attack on a base playing over the table. Lei slashed a hand through the hologram, effectively minimising it and directing them to seats.

“Apologies for the mess,” he said. “We’re having a reorganise now that Operation Loyalty is complete.”

“Operation Loyalty?” Hunk repeated. A very human phrase, surely?

“Yes,” Lei said. “It was a plan to take out a significant chunk of Zarkon’s few loyalists left in the running. Now, the majority of the soldiers will join the New Galra.”

“New Galra?”

There was a pregnant pause, during which Xyrtax was obviously trying not to laugh and Marvia was staring at them with a look of disappointment in her eyes.

“The remainder of the Galra citizens and soldiers who have become disillusioned with the empire. Not every Galra is willing to follow Sendak, Honerva and Lotor into the pits of hell. They are forming a new civilisation, one that isn’t completely focussed on war and violence,” Lei explained, shooting a look at Xyrtax.

Hunk sat for a moment, digesting the new information.

“I don’t suppose you mind if I go take a leak,” Lei said dryly. “I’ll only be a moment.” He stood, and then bent down to Marvia’s ear, whispering something to her that had her smiling for a moment. She pressed a kiss to his jaw and he rubbed a thumb across her cheek before leaving.

The Resistance members and Voltron sat in silence for a moment, before Marvia leaned forwards.

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested to know that when your call connected this morning, Lei let out the loudest groan I’ve ever heard him make, and I’ve heard him make a lot,” she informed them, the softness completely missing from her tone and a little smirk on her face that filled in the blanks where they didn’t need filling. Hunk choked on his own spit.

“If he weren’t who he is, he wouldn’t have agreed to meet with you today,” Xyrtax said, fixing them all with a piercing look. “You couldn’t just let him have a full varga to celebrate for once, could you.”

“We are at war, there is no time for celebration,” Allura said. Hunk knew that she meant well, but morale was also a contributing factor to the outcome of war and one way to raise that is to celebrate.

Marvia let out a little growl, making to stand up but Lei walked back in.

“Marvia,” he warned. She glared at him but sat back in her seat without further complaint. “What did you want to discuss with me about the _Rosa_ then?”

“The _Rosa_ was one of the castle’s only four cargo ships,” Pidge said promptly. “It went missing along with Lance, our red paladin, almost eight phoebs ago now. We want to know where he is.”

“Why?” Lei demanded. “Lance has told me about what you did to him, as I mentioned before. Why do you want to know where he is?”

“Because we made a mistake,” Hunk whispered. “And we’re sorry. We just want to know if he’s okay, Mr Lei, and I, personally, would prefer to do it with my own two eyes.” Shiro and Keith nodded emphatically. Both had been more affected by Lance’s disappearance than either had expected. Their fights had increased a lot and without Lance there to get them to calm down, it was nigh on impossible for anyone to sleep if they started growling at each other.

“We pushed him away because he was human,” Keith mumbled. “He didn’t push me away when I turned out to be half-Galra. I failed him. But I want to make it right. With him gone...we’ve lost the humanity we had before.”

“I just want to apologise,” Pidge said. “I’ve done him wrong and I probably can’t do anything to make it up to him, but I at least want to try! And I won’t let you stand in my way!”

Lei stared at them in what Hunk thought was shock.

“We don’t want to force him to do anything,” Shiro was almost begging. “He doesn’t need to come back with us, we just want to at least say sorry to him. We were wrong and hurtful.”

Xyrtax and Marvia exchanged looks and then simultaneously left the tent, Marvia placing a light hand on Lei’s shoulder as she went and Xyrtax cuffing him around the neck affectionately.

“Okay,” Lei whispered. “Okay.”

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

 

Lance’s hands were shaking as he reached to remove his mask. His team...not his team...his family...not his family...his friends...not his friends… they were all staring at him in bemusement as he lowered the mask from his face.

He had to admit, the mixture of shock and resignation in each of their expressions was almost worth revealing himself to them. Not completely; Lance would’ve preferred to remain anonymous for a while longer, but almost.

“Hey guys,” he greeted, voice no longer affected by the modulator in his mask.

Hunk’s eyes were filling with tears and suddenly Lance found himself crushed in a hug that was probably enough to kill Zarkon. Lance had the feeling that Hunk had forgotten his strength and skin.

“Hunk, you’re squashing me,” he wheezed, feet kicking in the air a little from where Hunk had lifted him off the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” Hunk sniffled, letting him back down and staring at him with teary chocolate brown eyes. “I was a horrible friend and I don’t deserve you and you have every right to be mad at me.”

“I was mad, Hunk,” Lance said flatly, his friend’s tears making him upset but also hurt. Lance had suffered more than Hunk had. But that wasn’t a fair thought so he pushed it from his mind. “I mean, I told you all about my feelings, didn’t I? I said that I was scared of being seen as weak and incapable and what did you do? You went and got an upgrade, leaving me all alone, as the weak, small, untalented human!”

Hunk nodded frantically, staring at the ground and watching his own tears splatter in front of his feet.

“I know and I don’t know how to make it up to you,” Hunk said, getting some modicum of control over his own tears. “But...but if you’re willing, I’d like to at least try.”

Lance closed his eyes and breathed out through his nose slowly. Memories of him and Hunk as little kids flew through his mind: they were seven, eating ice cream at the park, nine and Lance was climbing a tree, butterfly nets clamped in his teeth as he attempted to retrieve Hunk’s hand-made frisbee, twelve and they were playing streetball on the dry, cracked streets outside their houses, fourteen and staring up at the stars from on top of Hunk’s roof.

“Alright,” Lance said. “You’re my best friend, Hunk, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t forgive you?”

Hunk grinned shakily at him and gathered him in for another hug, this one significantly gentler and more considerate of his human bones.

“You’re gonna have to work for it though,” Lance warned. “This ain’t free, you know.”

“I got it,” Hunk said, stepping back and letting out a breath of relief.

“We’re sorry too, Lance,” Pidge said, gesturing at herself and Keith and Shiro. “I don’t know what came over us. You’re...you’re like my second brother,” she managed to get out, struggling with the words. “I didn’t mean what I said that day, I was just so worried about you, you kept getting hurt and-”

Lance cut her off and pulled her in for a short hug.

“You’re all going to have to work a little for it,” he said. “And...I doubt I’ll be able to just forget this that quickly, but I will try. I have missed you, even though you are all complete and utter assholes.”

The team let out a small chuckle.

“I...I feel I must apologise as well, Lance,” Allura said, trepidatiously. “I wasn’t involved at the meeting that led to your leaving, but I feel somewhat responsible for it. I also haven’t been the most polite when it comes to the Resistance. Had I known-”

“That I was in charge, you wouldn’t have been so passive-aggressive?” Lance suggested. “I think you need to work on that one, Princess. You can’t make alliances if you don’t trust your allies. That only leads to tension in the coalition.”

Lance considered her for a moment.

“I will forgive you all, eventually. There’s no way you won’t earn it, but I can’t right now. You understand? It’ll be like betraying myself, and I’ve dealt with enough betrayal for a long while now.”

They all nodded.

Lance enjoyed the breeze on his uncovered face and closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair and relaxing a little.

“Lance…” Hunk said, his tone a little cautious. Lance almost smiled. _Here it comes…_ “Will you come back to Voltron now?”

“No,” Lance said. “No, I don’t think so. Not yet, at least.”

Protests from the others came like clockwork, so expected yet also so surprising. Like when a grandfather clock chimes when you’re so close to dozing off at your abuela’s house.

“You have a full Voltron,” Lance said, sitting upright and looking them all in the eyes. “And I am doing well here. I can’t just abandon my... _my people_.”

“But…” Keith said. “But forming Voltron...it’s just so hard now.”

“And it wasn’t when we first were a team?” Lance countered. “Hard work and perseverance, my friend. You’ll succeed eventually and when you do...well, I’ll be there, cheering you on. Voltron isn’t built on the shoulders of one person. I am not the ‘heart’ of Voltron. Voltron doesn’t have a heart, it’s a giant robotic man. Voltron is the willpower of five, _extraordinary_ people who want to make a change and do good in the universe.”

“I am not part of that anymore,” Lance said, allowing himself a sad smile. “But I am part of something else. And when the time comes...well, I’ll have your back, just like I always have.”

They stared at him, the Paladins of Voltron.

And he stared back, the leader of the Resistance.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

_fin_

\- - - - - - - - - - > > \- - - - - - - - - - < < \- - - - - - - - - -

**Author's Note:**

> I just love how a fic looks when it says _fin_ at the end, uggghhh so satisfying
> 
> Anyway, I haven't finished season 8 yet but I'm a multishipper so I'm not mad at Allurance! I have seen the ending though because I'm a sadist and I do that to myself so yeah, spent a bit of today crying because I was at home, sick, joy oh joy
> 
> Hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed this fic! Be sure to leave a comment (and subscribe ;) do we even need to talk about YouTube Rewind this year or is this old news already) and let me know what you thought!
> 
> Thanks  
> ~Marshy


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